But was this just either to herself or her children? For herself, it must rest with her own conscience whether she has made the best use of her life, debasing her soul to the service of a worthless man, be he husband a thousand times over. But for her children, has she not grossly abused her responsibilities? She has sacrificed them to a father who has squandered the most brilliant opportunities, and degraded all their lives. Had she agreed to the wishes of her relatives to separate judicially from her worthless husband, whose downward course she was powerless to stay, she might have restored her children to their proper social position, and secured to them all the advantages of education. But she allowed herself to become estranged from those who could have helped her, and to beg for alms from friends whose purses were of less capacity than their hearts. And, oh! the terrible struggles of her life, the humiliation, the injustice, the pity of it. Then when the inevitable _delirium tremens_ cut off, in what should have been its prime, a life once so full of promise so grievously unfulfilled, it was all too late to repair the terrible mischief done. The children, who had been dragged up anyhow, lived anyhow, and were married anyhow to those who dragged them down still lower in the social scale. And their mother, the widowed martyr to her sense of wifely duty, ignored by proud and offended relatives, neglected by children whose gratitude she had never encouraged, and, weary of all, has hidden herself away in some obscure lodging to await, as patiently and submissively as she has lived, the coming of easeful death. And there will always be women like this to soften men’s lives by their own self-submission; but, thank goodness, there be also women who know how to live their own lives, and to stimulate, as well as smooth, the lives of men. _THE “AWFULLY JOLLY” GIRL_